Web shopping sets traffic records

FrankBarnako

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Online shopping visits reached a record high this year on Thanksgiving Day, with the ensuing "Black Friday" coming in second, according to HitWise, an analysis firm that monitors Web traffic. Shopping and classifieds Web sites claimed 11.39 percent of all U.S. visits on Thanksgiving Day, breaking the 2003 high of 8.96 percent set on the holiday last year, according to Bill Tancer, vice president of research.

The day after Thanksgiving, as consumers trooped out in droves to traditional stores and malls to mark the start of holiday selling season, remained busy for online retailers. Nielsen//NetRatings
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reported 13.3 million people visited online stores on Friday, or 11 percent more than a year ago. EBay.com
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drew 5.4 million, followed by Amazon.com
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at 2.6 million and Walmart.com
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at 1.4 million. As Ken Cassar, director of client analytics at the research firm, put it: "Even diehard holiday shoppers that weather the crowds at sunrise know to research the Web before heading out to the mall."

Search local, shop local

While Yahoo Shopping
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and BizRate.com are among the most popular comparison-shopping services on the Internet, new competition is coming at the grass-roots level. Services that let you search for local bricks-and-mortar retailers are gaining, according to Chris Sherman, associate editor of SearchEngineWatch.com. He cited three examples.

LiveDeal.com is free for sellers to list items, effectively serving as an alternative to local classifieds, Sherman wrote. ShopLocal.com is affiliated with 150 newspapers, portals and other shopping sites, and StepUp.com gives you the option of finding an item and buying it online or finding a local merchant.

Online shopping certainly is more popular than ever. EBay said 84 percent of Americans intend to buy at least one holiday gift online, according to a survey conducted for the company by A.C. Nielsen.

CraigsList finds kidney donor

How much more mainstream can the Internet get than to be part of a front-page story in Monday's New York Daily News? It reports a Queens woman placed an ad on Craigslist.com, seeking a kidney for her brother. The Internet site, a national network of local classified-ad resources, connected Debbie Diamond with five potential donors. One has agreed to final tests for organ compatibility. Diamond told the paper that her brother's in critical condition and that she placed the ad because "I have nothing left to lose." In her ad, she said, "Please consider giving the gift of life."

Google's video secret

Imagine dozens of the digital video machines made popular by TiVo
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recording everything that's on the networks and you have the idea behind Google's next big idea. Namely, it's adding video programming to the company's search tools. According to CNet News, the company
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is recording live TV shows and indexing closed-caption text of the programming to capture keyword data for searches. The report added that Google has contacted broadcasters to both avoid legal problems and to try to develop a way to make money with such a service. One possibility would be to give the programmers ads selling DVDs of programs.

Meanwhile, Singingfish.com has introduced a new version of its multimedia search service Web site. Now owned by America Online
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Singingfish has a new slogan -- to wit, "It's a Strange World. Fish It." The button to start searches is labeled "Fish It." While the site has hooks to some audio and video news programming, the preponderance of links are for entertainment-related content. Searches proving the most popular include Usher, Eminem and Britney Spears.

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